May 22, 2014

Ba Jin's First Visit to Singapore in 1927

著名作家巴金
(1905 - 2005) ; Best-loved Chinese Writer Ba Jin

Literary figures in Singapore

Singapore has been a source of inspiration for several international literary greats over the decades. For more than 100 years, Singapore has been kind to the travelling scribe. Many stayed at the Raffles Hotel, a home away from home for the likes of Hermann Hesse and James Michener. But, above all, Singapore played host to the literary lions of the British Empire such as Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham.

With thanks and courtesy of Abhijit to share his blog at pressrun.net. He said: "I love reading and writing and that’s how got into blogging.
I just wanted to write and publish online. But, as time went by, I discovered a
website could be a virtual library, an archive, to preserve things I had read
for future reference. Memory can be flaky, but a search engine can flush out
things forgotten. This is my little space on a server to write and recall, my
memory aid, my bulwark against oblivion."

Few friends know about other international literary figures who visit Singapore since the early days. As Singapore is a multi-ethnic, multi-language and multi-cultural country, these visitors from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and every country in the world.

With the help of friends and resources on the Internet as "memory aids" for the research on the blog, the following article in Chinese to share on this blog.

With Ba Jin's beautiful and classical literary prose in Chinese with injustice translated in English at the Google -Translate site, an excerpt of the description of Ba Jin's first visit to Singapore in 1927:

Ba Jin left Shanghai on January 15, 1927 to study in France via Singapore. He boarded the ship "Angers" and arrived in Singapore on January 24, 1927 at 8:00 pm. Because he is very familiar with Singapore. He stayed for only eight hours in Singapore.

With the kind contributors of YouTube videos to upload them on this blog for us to share. Thank you.

Please watch these YouTube videos with acknowledgement and thanks to the sources which are for non-profit or commercial purposes.

This personal blog is dedicated to Ba Jin as a tribute to one of the best Chinese writer from the People's Republic of China.